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I don't understand why Congress doesn't run afoul of the conflict of interest laws when they are allowed to write legislation that favors the ones funding their campaigns. It is a clear conflict of interest when you are writing laws that puts money in your own pocket. They should have to recuse themselves just like judges have to when they have a conflict of interest in a case. Can someone explain why this isn't a worse case than judges with a conflict considering how it is the law that judges are supposed to be interpreting?

I don't understand why Congress doesn't run afoul of the conflict of interest laws when they are allowed to write legislation that favors the ones funding their campaigns. It is a clear conflict of interest when you are writing laws that puts money in your own pocket. They should have to recuse themselves just like judges have to when they have a conflict of interest in a case. Can someone explain why this isn't a worse case than judges with a conflict considering how it is the law that judges are supposed to be interpreting?

In most european/aust/nz countries, most of asia and good chunks of south america and africa, it would be called "Corruption". Belesconi went down for stuff far *less* brazen than what some congress too.These people belong in prison, not seats of power.

I don't understand how they are even allowed to receive money from non citizens. We would be all up in arms if Putin was financing some American politicians, so why do we allow multinational corporations to do it?

The problem come in when the democratic process itself is corrupted. The most brazen in the States is gerrymandering but there are lots of other ways the American democratic process has been corrupted, witness the re-election statistics. When was the last time a party was wiped out due to perceived corruption? Here whole political parties have been wiped out due to perceived corruption. Unluckily they always come back with a new name and now have gotten wise to the idea of corrupting the democratic process

Gerrymandering is a process by which political parties in power user their power to give them a slight advantage in future elections. It involves no "corruption" (i.e., exchange of money for political favors), and pretty limited in scope. It is also widespread in Europe, except Europeans don't know and don't care.

But European parties in power have many more mechanisms to hurt their opponents and help themselves, and they use those mechanisms frequently. Again,

Gerrymandering is a process by which political parties in power user their power to give them a slight advantage in future elections. It involves no "corruption" (i.e., exchange of money for political favors), and pretty limited in scope. It is also widespread in Europe, except Europeans don't know and don't care.

But European parties in power have many more mechanisms to hurt their opponents and help themselves, and they use those mechanisms frequently. Again, Europeans don't know and don't care.

Why in a representative democracy should the party in power be able to fix things to give them a future advantage? Just the idea of politicians having power in how the electoral process works reeks of corruption. And no, corruption does not have to involve money. And why reference Europeans? It's a big place with a lot of different cultures and political systems. Perhaps we should also talk about Africa or S. America and do a lot of generalizing. It's America that pretends to be the bastion of freedom and i

Why in a representative democracy should the party in power be able to fix things to give them a future advantage? Just the idea of politicians having power in how the electoral process works reeks of corruption. And no, corruption does not have to involve money. And why reference Europeans? It's a big place with a lot of different cultures and political systems.

We're talking about Europe because you made comparisons with Europe and said that gerrymandering is the most brazen form of political corruption in

Why in a representative democracy should the party in power be able to fix things to give them a future advantage? Just the idea of politicians having power in how the electoral process works reeks of corruption. And no, corruption does not have to involve money. And why reference Europeans? It's a big place with a lot of different cultures and political systems.

We're talking about Europe because you made comparisons with Europe and said that gerrymandering is the most brazen form of political corruption in the US. I pointed out that not only is gerrymandering common in Europe, European political parties have far more sinister ways of corrupting the political process.

I've reviewed the thread and can't find any references to Europe besides yours.

I've reviewed the thread and can't find any references to Europe besides yours.

Well, that's because you have been vague and evasive in your examples:

The most brazen in the States is gerrymandering... Here whole political parties...

You were talking about a party-based democracy in which (implied) significant political parties have disappeared, and you referred to Europe in other threads. In any case, it is also the proper counterexample, regardless of whether you were referring to Elbonia, Canada, or some

Stepping a little back. While we get rightly frustrated at how much money plays a part in politics, lobbying itself, including funding campaigns, is not all bad. Generally people (and groups of people) want people in office who are sympathetic to the things that matter to them. So if you want change, you find candidates who seem receptive to your cause and expend resources to help their chances of getting into office.

They can not recuse themselves because having interests is part of their job. They ar

It'd be nice if there was a way to keep the politicians from finding out who was paying for their campaigns. Then the money would go to people with similar interests, but the politicians wouldn't be able to change their interests to match the money. Unfortunately it isn't really practical.

Or when they introduce legislation that has been completely written by the lobbyists who donate big sums of money to their campaign, treat them to "fact finding trips" to luxury resorts, and the like. Because nothing says "of the people, by the people" like having a giant corporation treat some Senators to a trip on a yacht so that they can push for a bill that the giant corporation has completely written to become law.

The theory is that this is just one guy. He can introduce all the legislation he wants but requires over 200 others to also be on his side. A judge, by contrast, holds unique power in the room (or at least, one of a very small number).

In fact, given the difficulties in trying to reach a 60 vote threshold in the Senate, which has become essentially mandatory, the odds of this legislation going anywhere are extremely low. If it gets anywhere at all, it will be subject to the votes of the rest of the Congressm

This has nothing to do with capitalism. It is about legalized bribery. When you have someone profiting off the rules they make that is actually anti-capitalism since it is skewing the playing field for other entities in the market.

There wouldn't be any bribery. What there would (eventually) be is a State that is able to demand censorship. You can use Comcast's DNS to find sites criticizing Comcast because if Comcast blocked the site but Time Warner didn't, people would be able to tell the difference.

Right now, when a site is ordered off the Internet, everyone who cares finds out about it immediately, largely because of the fact that the ISPs don't implement the order simultaneously.

People doing things that benefit themselves is the very definition of capitalism.

Perhaps you're thinking of Asshole Anarchy.

Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets and wage labor.[3] In a capitalist economy, the parties to a transaction typically determine the prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged.[4]

Writing legislation to intervene with the free portion of a free market is the opposite of a capitalism. I would like to benefit myself by using the government sanctioned cable under the ground to create my own ISP. Now g

"Critics of capitalism including socialists and other anti-capitalists often assert that crony capitalism is the inevitable result of any capitalist system. Jane Jacobs described it as a natural consequence of collusion between those managing power and trade, while Noam Chomsky has argued that the word "crony" is superfluous when describing capitalism."

Yup, they "assert" this, but "asserting" something doesn't make it true. Socialists like to use the term to blame capitalism for what is actually a failure of government. "Crony capitalism" is "capitalism" in the same way that the "German Democratic Republic" was "democratic".

Thing is that it seems inevitable that under capitalism democratic government will be for sale to the higher bidder. Laws and even Constitutions are ignored, judges are bought off or just flaming partisan shills. Perhaps a benevolent dictator would work but as history shows they are rare and eventually get replaced by a non-benevolent dictator.It seems to always come down to the no true Scotsman argument, and fails whether talking about Capitalism, Communism or other isms and reality is what we have.

Thing is that it seems inevitable that under capitalism democratic government will be for sale to the higher bidder.

Buying Congressional seats or the presidency has frequently been unsuccessful, and very rich and powerful people regularly get tough sentences from judges. Therefore, obviously, your hypothesis is false: democratic government under capitalism does not go to the highest bidder.

What bothers you is rent seeking (lobbying, etc.), the same thing that bothers me and many other people. But rent seeki

Here I thought that it cost a fortune to run for power in the American federal government which means needing large campaign contributions with the contributors expecting favours in return. Glad to hear I'm totally wrong on that.Free markets are great but expecting them to stay free, especially as they grow is as stupid as expecting to have a communist state without some arsehole dictator seizing power.

Here I thought that it cost a fortune to run for power in the American federal government which means needing large campaign contributions with the contributors expecting favours in return. Glad to hear I'm totally wrong on that.

Yes, you are "totally wrong" on that. People do need large amounts of money, but the rest is b.s.

Free markets are great but expecting them to stay free, especially as they grow is as stupid as expecting to have a communist state without some arsehole dictator seizing power.

yeah but what good is a functioning brainstem if you dont actually use your brain?? of COURSE critics of capitalism will point out the worst case scenario. just as a capitalist will explain that communism is a disease and will result in stalin like executions.

In their pure forms, they are pretty much identical. In terms of corruption they are both just as bad and manage to spin corruption as something principled. That is why countries that have either system tend to be, well, holes of brown sticky stuff. Most industrialized nations use hybrid systems.

Almost all countries, socialist or not, are riddled with corruption. It is a human characteristic for humans in a position of power to fall into corruption.

But I'll tell you one country which is not rotting from the head. You're not going to like it, because it is socialist. I am talking about the Republic of Uruguay; specifically of President José Mujica. He is an almost unique example of an uncorrupt leader of a nation. He declined to take up residence in the presidential palace and lives instead on an austere farm and cultivates flowers there. His transportation? Not the armored rolling palace of an Obama, but a 1987 VW beetle! His net worth on taking office was $1800, and he donates 90% of his presidential salary to the public welfare. He lives on the remaining $800 a month.

He has also overseen the legalization of marijuana, which Obama is too corrupt to do.

So I'm not sure I can show you a country, socialist or not, which is not sorrupt, but I sure can show you a socialist leader who is not corrupt.

Thanks, I have read about this man before and do find him to be very inspirational. I believe that on a small scale, communism and socialism can work, but im talking a few thousand people max. anymore then that and as you pointed out human nature kicks in

I don't think it's human nature that kicks in, because that is always present even if it's not acted upon. I think it's the lack of accountability and the amount of available power that kicks in. It's too much for the sociopathic politician types to ignore.

Uruguay is actually tied with the United States for 19th least corrupt [transparency.org]. This makes them the least corrupt country in South America, but unremarkable globally. Unsurprisingly, the least corrupt countries are in northern Europe (plus New Zealand). In other words, the socialist countries.

This comment: "He has also overseen the legalization of marijuana, which Obama is too corrupt to do." is ridiculous. Marijuana legislation isn't about bribes, it's about catering to a certain hysterical group of voters. Like

Marijuana criminalization was about protecting industries, read up on Hearst and his new pulp paper industry and the threat of cheap hemp paper, as well as a part of government that had experienced unparallelled power during prohibition wanting to keep that power. Getting certain groups of people hysterical was the propaganda part of it, very successful as it was run by one of the largest media empires of the time. Note if the government had tried to illegalize hemp it would never of succeeded so they had t

I'm familiar with the history, but while the historical context is interesting it has nothing to do with whether the current president is or is not corrupt. Paper industry protectionism is not the reason why Obama has not overseen the nationwide legalization of marijuana.

The part of government that has acquired huge powers due to the war on drugs along with pressures from the prison industry along with civil forfeiture financing many smaller governments are major pressures keeping marijuana and other drugs illegal.Whether its the President who is corrupt or the bureaucracy it seems like corruption to me, especially the way civil forfeiture is used.

If you think there's a better way to measure corruption than I'd be happy to hear it. Comparing numbers of prosecutions / reported incidents of bribery is ultimately just a way of evaluating the vigilance of the country's legal system. Surveying journalists and public policy experts, as they do, certainly seems to me to be the most effective approach.

Corruption is hard to measure as by its nature it is usually hidden, We can look at the corruption perception index, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] where the top countries traditionally generally have democratic socialism and the bottom countries are a mix of capitalist and socialist.We can also look at surveys asking the people, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] with similar results.The reality seems to be that a mix of capitalism and socialism seems to have the best outcome for the large majority of na

How else do you measure perception? I know for my country the ranking seems pretty accurate including the downward spiral since the right took power. Most of the other countries seem to agree with general perception.Actually the countries with the best growth, wealth, education, etc are generally a mix of socialist and capitalist. The Nordic countries, Germany, the larger Commonwealth countries are all doing quite well.Even China since they've moved to a mixed system has made enormous strides. As a counter

Look, you were trying to make a point about political corruption. Then you switched to bureaucratic corruption, a completely different thing, and then you provided statistics that don't even support that point.

The "corruption" we are actually talking about (politicians giving favors to private companies) is primarily rent seeking. You can't measure that by asking people "did you pay a bribe".

Actually the countries with the best growth, wealth, education, etc are generall

They are indistinguishable these days since most if not all cable companies are providing VoiP as well as all the other internet related services. It is called "bundling". And the telcos are doing the same thing especially in the cellular area.

So you are correct that to level the playing field you either should lift the regulation on the telcos or bring the cable providers under the same regulation.

Exactly which cable company is NOT providing telephone service these days? They're telecoms now, plain and simple. The skirt around regulations by claiming "different technology", but it serves the same purpose, and seems like the same thing to the general public.
It would seem you're against strict regulation. What will keep telecommunications providers from inspecting every packet that crosses their wires and holding up smaller businesses for protectio...I mean, transit fees?
If I pay for 50Mbps bandwidth, and Netflix pays their provider for 50Tbps of bandwidth, but Comcast decides they should be making more money, what stops them from throttling Netflix traffic in exchange for more money? Streaming a video might take...2-3Mbps, right? The number crunchers at Comcast, though, see that Netflix traffic on their network takes up some 50%+ of the total traffic, and they want to ride the gravy train. So, they'll hold up Netflix for more dough, and Netflix will pass on the upcharge to their customers - making Netflix look like the bad guy to people who don't understand how it all works. Shady stuff, man, and we shouldn't give that kind of power to Comcast or At&t or anyone else.

I think they should split the industry into signal providers and signal carriers, much like some places have split power generation and power carriers. Companies should not have a defacto monopoly just because they sit at the cable head.

Sigh. Are you falling for the lie hook line and sinker, or are you part of the lie?

Telecommunication - communication at a distance by technological means, particularly through electrical signals or electromagnetic waves.Tele- a combining form meaning "distant", from the Greek "têle", far.Communiocation - the act or process of imparting, exchanging, or transmitting thoughts, opinions, or information.

Power and Money have no borders. USA, North Korea or Russia makes no difference for oligarchs. They want it all and don't care where the peasants live.
As long they are compliant, work hard for a small change and don't ask too much in return.
Welcome to XXI century where oligarchs around the world hold hands together.

I went to his Facebook page and it looks the like comments on this issue are about 30:1 against his position. He's really being hammered there as a sellout. Yeah, I know, he really doesn't give a damn, but I'm glad people are speaking up.

Be honest now. When you read this, and how a congressman was trying to limit the power of the FCC, the entity that tried to eliminate net neutrality just recently, did you think "yay" or was your first thought "now how is this going to be used to fuck us over"?

Am I the only one who feels like ANY kind of law being introduced today is aiming at screwing the average voter over in favor of the interest of a few corporations?

Look, if Ben Franklin had understood this "electricity" thing better, he'd have defined the Post Office program -- that allowed "a Republic, if you can keep it" to work, by putting every citizen within equal reach of every other citizen -- to include it explicitly.

That's Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, that gave us the Post Office.

IMHO this is yet another example of the national Republicans being out of touch with real people on Main Street (unlike the 'true' Republican party that existed for decades.) They are listening to the lobbyists for the big cable providers, etc. - those whose present business model is based on having local monopolies, while being allowed to act as if they were in competitive markets. This even extends to liability for content - these companies are arguing on the one hand that they are 'common carriers' and s

I'm not convinced the Republican Party "of old" was ever all that much better although I could be swayed by the idea that they're a lot more brazen in their willingness to embrace just about any corporate proposal. I'm especially unconvinced the Democrats are any better,

Lame duck like Obama, you'd hope he'd use the FCC/FTC/Justice department to lean on the cable companies, block their merger attempts, get the DoJ to issue opinions in favor of municipal broadband and raise anti-trust investigations over mar

I'm not convinced the Republican Party "of old" was ever all that much better although I could be swayed by the idea that they're a lot more brazen in their willingness to embrace just about any corporate proposal. I'm especially unconvinced the Democrats are any better,

The original GOP, recall, was essentially created to end slavery. Had Lincoln not been elected, it's possible that the war might not have happened. In the 1880s (IIRC - may have been earlier) the GOP entered a Civil Rights bill that was essentially the same as the one that finally got passed in 1962 - and THAT one was passed with 80% GOP support, only 66% Dem support even though it was sponsored by the Dem administration. Even then, the Dems only came along after much arm twisting and 'incentives'.

I don't see the issue with duplication of infrastructure anyway. It's like when people complain about multiple brands of conflakes on the supermarket shelf and the associated advertising costs. It totally fails to account for the value proposition that competition brings.

Sure, no one wants a dozen fiber optic cables strung down the street (though I wish the US would bury the cables but that's another discussion) but that's not likely to happen anyway. The issue is that if you allow competition, the maximum

The history of AT&T is most interesting. At that time (late 1920s IIRC) there were hundreds or thousands of phone companies. AT&T was the biggest. AT&T used both technical arguments and outright bribery to establish the phone monopoly. It argued that with all these companies competing - mostly for the "last mile" - the country would suffer with too many conflicting technologies and incompatibilities, and price competition would prevent spending the money for the r

But it's also possible that the other path might have resulted in much faster development - we'll never know.

True, it's impossible to be sure but one might attempt to measure it up to the growth of the internet which has, in a decade or two since it became consumer ready, brought us vast information resources at a cheap cost and has, in the process, totally buried some technologies that telcos were attempting to bring us in their half-hearted locked-in manner (Video calls, information services etc).

With an election due later in the year, this guy is presumably up for re-election. Is there anyone here who can comment on how hard it would be to vote him out? Anyone know who his opponent is and what their position on net neutrality is?

Latta was re-elected in 2012. He beat Democratic nominee, Angela Zimmann and Libertarian nominee, Eric Eberly.
He was endorsed by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the NFIB, the NRA and National Right to Life.